Today, I will talk about two things that don’t seem to go together, but they do. And that’s the concept of independence and rebellion; and the concept of freedom and dependence. Not freedom and independence, but freedom and dependence. As well as independence and rebellion.
Two of those are good; two of those are bad. Which is which from a Biblical worldview? I’m glad you asked.
Scripture: Galatians 5:13-26
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
I know you all know those verses. In fact, I quote the fruit of the Spirit so much that you’re probably sick of me quoting them. I’m going to focus on the preceding verses.
But what does all of that have to do with freedom and dependence?
Just because we are free from ‘the law’ or in today’s language, our freedom from religious legalism or traditions does not give us an excuse to do whatever is right in our own eyes. That would be the independence and rebellion I talked about a few minutes ago–an independence away from God to live as you want. But God wants a freedom that comes from Him, and away from religious law, so that we can live a life that pleases Him. And that life, the true life that we all desire, requires a dependence upon Him. We cannot live that life on our own because we are too prone to use that freedom as an excuse to sin.
Solomon wrote twice in Proverbs, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” In other words, Enduring Word Commentary states, “The issue then is how deceptive evil is. It might promise and deliver happiness, power, and the good life, but it cannot sustain what it gives.”
It also said, “This makes plain our need for a revelation from God. We can’t entirely trust our own examination and judgment. To really know we are on the way of life (instead of the way of death), we need to fear the LORD and receive His wisdom….”
So for those of us who desire a new life, we must live that new life in Christ, not apart from Him, in our own wisdom. Therefore, freedom and dependence go together.
So many people want to live a new life apart from Christ. So many people have turned their backs on the church. And when I meet people who have done so, I can kind of understand why. Churches have too often held to those religious laws that no one can live up to, so many just quit. Churches have also been harsh or judgmental, sometimes straight from the pulpit, others not, and sometimes it’s individuals within the church. And remember last week’s sermon on truth and grace? We need to have both. Quite often, those who leave the church do so because they come from a church with too much truth and not enough grace.
I’ve heard people leave because there were too many hypocrites in the church. Other times, people leave because they don’t get it. They have questions about The Bible–what about this, what about that? Unfortunately, the church–even some pastors–are not equipped to handle answering tough questions that people struggle with. Why is there evil in the world? What about evolution? How can I know The Bible is true and is not some mythology?
So they see the grass, and it looks greener on the other side, so they, who may be straddling the fence, decide to go to the other side to check it out. And like the prodigal son, they sense an independence that they didn’t have before. They’re on their own. They’re making their own choices, living their own life with no one telling them what to do or how to live…and it feels great.
And maybe they still believe in God.
“Oh, that fence, yeah, it’s over there. I know how to get back to it if I need to.”
And next thing you know, they’re further and further from that fence, kind of like that great divide or that ravine like Watkins Glen that I talked about last week.
And so now, their ‘new life’ is further and further from Christ, but they never really had a life in Christ, to begin with; at least, I don’t think so. They were just churchgoers who believed in a form of God. The type of Christian that Paul warned Timothy about having a form of godliness but denying its power.
So what happens to them now? Well, now they have an excuse to indulge in the flesh. Before, they probably wanted to but couldn’t, or at least do so quite so freely. Now, they’ve got the freedom and independence to do so and permission from people who not only encourage it but will also join in.
In the Book of Matthew, Jesus said, “13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
So a prodigal is going to feel free from the religious chains that bound them. And they’re going to have plenty of people affirming their behavior and maybe some joining in. No one is going to shame them, and there won’t be any hypocrites.
It sounds nice, doesn’t it? You can see how it’s appealing. Oh, and by the way, you get to sleep in on Sunday mornings and watch The Three Stooges in your pajamas with a bowl of cereal.
But as we learned from the story of the prodigal in Luke chapter 15, it’s not all fun and games. And as we read in our scripture verse this morning out of Galatians, “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Did you catch that last part? The prodigal believes they’re still right with God because they believe. They left that fence, and they know where it is and how to get back to it, but…I don’t know how they dare do so. At least, I would never dare to do so for more reasons than one. One reason is that I want to inherit the kingdom of God, and the other is that I don’t want to live that lifestyle that comes from acts of the flesh.
I know it’s so enticing to be free, but what are you free to do and be part of? I see so many people during the workweek in my medical shuttle van who have lived this lifestyle, and they end up in just a pathetic place in life. They live in such a way (some of them) that they don’t even realize how unattractive and loathsome their lifestyle is. It’s like, ‘Don’t you see it? Don’t you see there’s a better way?’ To them, they’re living with the pigs like the prodigal, but they seem to like it. Look at the Pride parades, especially the one where they marched nude. This is the lifestyle that they’re proud of?
You’ll notice that the prodigals, in their desire to find something better, have only found the debauchery or debasing of humanity and themselves.
Like I said, some like it. Some decide to stay. Maybe it’s because they never saw the fruit of the Spirit or a better way, to begin with. Some churches are like that. Some Christians are like that. Having a form of godliness but denying its power.
Back to Galatians 5, verse 13: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
And then verse 16: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Notice Paul does not say, “Walk by religion; walk by the ways of the church.” He doesn’t even say, “Walk by the way your pastor teaches you.” He says, “Walk by the Spirit.”
This is because in the first twelve verses prior to this, Paul was trying to tell the Galatian church about how useless it is to follow ‘the law’ or religious traditions or even Old Testament religious rules for salvation. The Old Testament is called ‘old’ for a reason. The rules for salvation have changed; not the moral rules, but the rules for salvation.
Verses 1 and 2 say, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.”
Circumcised? That’s kind of odd. What does that mean for us today? It means that religious rules and dogma do not set us free. In fact, as scripture points out, it keeps us bound to that dogma and traditions of man. And when certain people find that out the hard way, instead of finding a church that believes in freedom, they just leave the church altogether and throw out the baby with the bathwater. Now they have an excuse to indulge the flesh because they believe that now, they’re truly free. But true freedom is not found in escaping the church altogether, it is found in Christ. In other words, it is found through the inner working of The Holy Spirit to change us from the desires of the flesh to His desires.
In other words, the fruit of the Spirit.
Our spirit changes; our desires change; our behavior changes, and that is freedom!
Verses 17 and 18 again say: “17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
So in other words, if you are led by the Spirit, you are not obligated to live by religious dogma, nor are you finding yourself living in quite the rebellious, independent way that you did before. You find yourself free from both of those things; and living naturally in a new life governed by The Holy Spirit.
Enduring Word Commentary said: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh: Simply put, if we walk in the Spirit (instead of trying to live by the law), we naturally shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh…the fear of the legalist – that walking in the Spirit gives license to sin, and that only legalism can keep us holy – is just plain wrong.
i. To walk in the Spirit first means that the Holy Spirit lives in you. Second, it means to be open and sensitive to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Third, it means to pattern your life after the influence of the Holy Spirit.
James Boice said: “Life by the Spirit is neither legalism nor license – nor a middle way between them. It is a life of faith and love that is above all of these false ways.”
Enduring Word also stated that: living by the Spirit effectively “writes” the law of God on our hearts, inside of us. This is the great work of the New Covenant, promised in the Old Testament [where God told Jeremiah]: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Jeremiah 31:33).
So you see where freedom and dependence go hand in hand? Freedom from sin; freedom from the old flesh. Not a literal old flesh, but a symbolic flesh, that certain something that we naturally are. Returning to James Boice, he said that ‘the flesh’ in this manner means “all the evil that man is and is capable of apart from the intervention of God’s grace in his life.”
So you can be religious and still be in the flesh. Just like Paul was saying to the Galatians earlier in this chapter, it doesn’t matter how often you go to church, which laws you obey, or how much you have circled in your Bible, it doesn’t mean anything. And I think, and hope, it’s a very freeing thought. A lot of religious people live in too much fear of God, and maybe even in fear of their pastor or other church congregants when we should be living in freedom.
I came across this on biblicalcounseling.com and thought I’d share it with you: “Solomon tells us the “fear of man will prove to be a snare” (Proverbs 29:25). Just as an animal caught in a trap can’t perform its God-given function, when you or I give in to the fear of man, we can’t do what God is calling us to do.”
Think about that, think about how that relates to freedom in Christ. We often think about ‘the fear of man’ in a worldly sense, but it can be in a religious sense too. We can fear religious people. We can fear other pastors. I think about how my dad was so burned in another denomination that when he came here, he didn’t really want to associate with many other people in religious authority.
I’ve feared people in religious authority looking down on me for one reason or another–not being spiritual enough because of this or that. It ended up being a baseless fear once I got to know these people.
But if we do come across people like that, when we have The Holy Spirit, we can have that assurance in our hearts from The Holy Spirit that we’re okay with God. And if we’re not okay, if we’re in sin somewhere, then we will have a conviction that comes from The Holy Spirit. We don’t have to walk on pins and needles around certain religious folk.
Last week, I began with a quote from Timothy Keller, here’s another one. He said, “The only thing that casts out the fear of man is a deep love relationship with God.”
And this is a topic for a whole separate sermon, but I wanted to add it today because it goes along with religious bondage. We don’t have to be ‘religious’ or afraid of the ‘other religious people’ if we are in step with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will guide us. He will guide us and help us make our faith our own as mature Christians.
And that is where dependence comes in. Who are we spiritually dependent on, God or man? Are we getting whipped by the preacher or led by the Spirit? Verse 18 again says, “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
When we did our series on Hebrews, I talked about this. From Hebrews 5:13-14 “13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
Where is our spiritual ‘solid food’ coming from? It has to come from good teaching, not just religious dos and don’ts. Just a series of ‘dos and don’ts’ leads to spiritual bondage. There has to be leading, confirmation, and growth that comes from The Holy Spirit.
So some of you might say, “Well, why go to church then? I mean, I’d rather be sleeping in on a Sunday and watching The Three Stooges in my pajamas with a bowl of cereal.”
Well, to practice what I preach, I guess I have to give you that freedom, don’t I? I’m not saying that you can’t, dogmatically, but I am saying that you shouldn’t. Because The Three Stooges isn’t much to depend on spiritually.
Well, what if I just watch the TV preachers?
I wouldn’t recommend that, either, for a couple of reasons. First, there are some TV preachers I would be ashamed of having on my channel if I were a programming chairman; and second, we need the help, strength, and support of one another.
And that leads me to one more thing before I close, our dependence is not only on the work of The Holy Spirit but also upon each other.
I’m so glad to see this church doing that and helping each other out. I’m so glad to have seen your help and support when my dad was hospitalized. I’m glad to see you lifting each other up in prayer on our Facebook messenger.
There’s no reason why we can’t go one step closer to someone in this church to ask for wisdom or counsel or a more personal prayer request or a favor–if you haven’t already. Maybe it’s just a closer friendship by asking someone over for coffee or dinner.
If we turn the page to Galatians 6, in the first two verses, we read: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Then we jump a few verses down and we read in 9 and 10: “9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
And lastly…once again, from Hebrews
Hebrews 10:24-25
“24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Let’s remember in Christ; there is freedom but dependence. He frees us from sin and a sinful lifestyle, but we must depend on him to live a holy and righteous lifestyle.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash
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